


The King's Mask

by humanoidmachine



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-15
Updated: 2017-07-16
Packaged: 2018-12-02 06:08:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11503347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/humanoidmachine/pseuds/humanoidmachine
Summary: Years after betraying Thorin and ending their friendship, Bilbo returns to the orphanage where they grew up in order to make amends.This entire story will take place during a single night.A Majora's Mask AU.





	1. 12:00

**Author's Note:**

> Hello and thanks for coming here.  
> I had been playing around with this idea for a while now, so I decided to just go ahead and try to actually write something. It should be a relatively short fanfiction and extremely AU-ish. The focus of it will be 95% on Bilbo and Thorin, other characters will stay mostly in the background.

The orphanage looked the same as it did ten years ago, the only difference being the overgrown vegetation in the front yard and the vines that now crawled through many of its walls. When Bilbo was a child he didn't believe it to be an orphanage; Thorin always called it a castle because "a castle is wherever the King lives, regardless of how small" and Bilbo believed him, as he always did, and called it a castle too. If others corrected the boy saying that it was, in fact, not a castle, he simply assumed they must be wrong because he was sure Thorin couldn't be.

Thinking back on it now, Bilbo couldn't tell whether his friend truly did believe it was a castle or not. Actually, he couldn't tell if Thorin believed any of the fantasies he spouted at all. Standing there, in front of the orphanage's gates after all those years, he felt an unrelenting desire to know.

"You can only enter if you have an invite from the King. Do you have one?"

A boy's voice came from the other side of the gate, abruptly taking Bilbo away from his thoughts. The boy, clearly a gatekeeper, wore a wooden mask with a poorly drawn smiling face on it and blue pajamas. He extended his open hand through the grid, waiting for the man on the other side to hand him an invite. Bilbo pulled from his pocket a small notebook filled to the brim with well folded pages, all yellowed with age. He browsed through them slowly, unfolding each page to see if it was the one he was looking for and then folding it again if it wasn't. He didn't find any invitations from the King, he must've lost the ones he had, but he did find one from the Prince, which he handed to the boy. Before actually reading the invitation, however, the boy removed his mask and scratched his nose, revealing himself to be Ori.

Poor Ori, he must've annoyed Thorin. Everytime he did so the King made him be gatekeeper for the night, knowing very well that the child was scared of the dark.

"This is not from the King," said Ori, after putting his mask on again "this is from the Prince. You need to know the password if your invitation is from the Prince."

Bilbo once again started looking through the folded pages in his notebook, searching for the password. He eventually found a note that read; _The Prince's password is Tingle, Tingle! Kooloo-Limpah! I made those words myself! Don't steal them!_

"Tingle, Tingle! Kooloo-Limpah!" said Bilbo.

Ori just pushed the gate open, since it was never locked, and went to sit on his small bench. Bilbo quickly went past him, through the front yard and up to the doorstep. He opened the wooden doors of the orphanage and closed them after he entered the old building. It was quite dark inside the main hall, the only light was the one coming from the moon through the single window that wasn't covered by a curtain. Because of that the man didn't realize the presence of the Gargantuan Fish Prince, who sat against a wall.

"Are you here to see Thorin? Because I don't think he wants to see you," said the Prince.

Bilbo couldn't help but jump when he heard the boy's voice, and then once more when he saw him. Kili's mask had always terrified him, a childhood fear that stayed with him even as he grew up. Kili used to scare him with the mask everytime they went swimming in the lake, so much so that Bilbo gave up on swimming all together, and even as an adult he still feared turning around in the water and seeing the fish mask's big teeth and wide mouth. Such was the reason the other children called Kili "gargantuan" even though none knew the meaning of the word; it simply sounded as terrifying to them as the Prince's mask was.

"I came to talk to him and I won't leave before doing so," said Bilbo.

Kili stayed quiet and started scratching his head. Perhaps he was considering helping in the man's plight, perhaps he was thinking of a gentle way to say that it didn't matter what he came for, he still wouldn't see Thorin. If there was anything that truly annoyed Bilbo about the masks was the fact that they hid the other's faces, making guessing what they were thinking way harder than it had the right to be.

"Maybe if you wore your mask, he'd see you."

Bilbo feared the possibility that he needed his mask to see the Thorin; he had lost it long ago, back on the day he left the orphanage. He simply threw it away, believing he would never need it again. He came to regret that decision the very next day.

Each child in the orphanage had a mask, and each child was part of Thorin's very own aristocracy. The ones with the most well made masks were considered to be "grand aristocrats," as Balin once put it, and those with crudely made masks were considered "low aristocrats." Since Bilbo no longer had his mask, he no longer had a place in Thorin's little imaginary world; he was simply a commoner, someone far below the King and his glorious mask.

"I don't have it anymore, Kili. I lost it long ago."

If Kili was surprised, then there was no way to know.

"Well, I'm not gonna stop you from trying to see him," said the Prince "you know your way around the place and we only sleep during the day anyway, so you can just ask around to find out where Thorin is. You still have that notebook, right?"

"Of course."

Bilbo actually had intended to throw away the notebook in his pocket along with his own mask, but he was lucky enough to simply forget about it and let it stay in the very bottom of his handbag. He had thrown it in there when he hurriedly packed his belongings on the day he left the orphanage, and there it stayed for days on end, burried below his old books. When he did pick it up again, however, he didn't quite find it in himself to throw it away.

Kili turned around without a word and walked up the stairs, soon he was out of Bilbo's sight.

Once he could no longer hear the Prince's footsteps he went around opening every curtain in the main hall in order to better illuminate it. When he finished doing so he let his eyes drift across the place that once was his home. Just like the outside, the inside hadn't changed at all; every piece of furniture, the curtains and the carpet...everything was the same, and he couldn't help but the remember the day when he gifted Thorin with a mask, the day when the orphanage's "aristocracy" started.

_There was a travelling mask salesman in town that day, selling the most wonderful masks Thorin and Bilbo had ever seen. There was one of every color and of every pattern, some were of fishes and others were of goats, and the horns of the goat masks were made with real animal horns! Others who depicted birds were made with soft white feathers, and the ones made in the image of frogs felt similar to the touch as real frogs did._

_Thorin only had eyes for one mask however._

_It wasn't one made in the form of an animal, it instead resembled a folklore creature. It was in the shape of a stylized heart, and mostly consisted of a mixture of red and purple, but its two eyes had bright yellow corneas and green pupils. It had horns atop its head and by its cheeks as well, all of varying colors. Sadly, the mask salesman said it was the only mask that wasn't for sale._

_Any other day Bilbo would've stopped himself from stealing it, but it just so happened to be Thorin's birthday. Both of them had gone to town in order to buy a present with Thorin's allowance, but nothing seemed to interest him until the strange mask came along. Bilbo then patiently waited until the salesman distracted himself in a conversation with a young woman, and then he swiftly took the mask and ran away. Luckily, the salesman didn't realize the mask had disappeared until the boy was long gone._

_Bilbo knew very well how wrong stealing was and the amount of trouble he would get in if any adult ever discovered it, but Thorin's bright smile upon receiving the mask made taking the risk worth it. He even let Bilbo kiss his cheek!_

_Things started changing afterwards; Thorin would wear the mask every day, even in his sleep, only ever taking it off if an adult explictly told him to. All the other children became strangely obedient of him, always doing exactly what Thorin urged them to do. Bilbo found the changes strange, but everytime he said so he was simply brushed off by his now masked friend; "of course they obey me, I'm their King."_

Suddendly, a cold wind blew through the main hall and made the night ever so colder, pulling Bilbo away from his memories. He thought of Ori instead, the poor boy must've been freezing! He wouldn't disobey Thorin and leave his post as gatekeeper though, all Bilbo could do was go in the front yard and leave his coat with the child. Ori still sat on his small bench, but now he hugged his body and trembled a little. When the man silently put his black coat on the boy's shoulders he received a shaky "thank you." Such small kindness probably made Ori smile, but the mask still hid his face.


	2. 12:30

From the front yard where Bilbo and Ori were a piano's music could suddendly be heard. It was a slow melody that both of them quickly recognized to be the song Balin played every night, if only for a few moments. Though Ori didn't show any reaction to the song, Bilbo was taken aback by the thought that Balin still played the same song even after ten years. The gatekeeper, easily guessing the motives of the man's confusion, spoke.

"He still plays it every night, but those past few years he started only doing it for a few seconds. Figures that even him would start getting sick of it. It may be a pretty song, but it gets tiring after so long. I'm waiting for the day when he only plays one note before stopping for the night..."

As if Ori's words had willed it, the song stopped as quickly as it started. Bilbo never understood what Balin's fixation with it was. He had asked once, but knew that his friend was lying when his only answer was "I quite like it," because even _quite_ liking a song doesn't make anyone play it every night for a decade. If anything, he had already considered Balin's obsession with the song to be akin to a madman's behavior. Regardless, now he knew that his old friend was in the room where the piano was located.

Once again Bilbo entered the orphanage main hall, but this time he immediately opened the third door to his left. It led to a small room with two couches, a fireplace and the piano where sat Balin, holding a candle and staring at the instrument's keys. The sound of the door opening disrupted his thoughts however, and pulled his attention towards the man at the room's entrance. The sight of an old friend made both of them smile. Bilbo closed the door behind himself and sat on the couch closest to the piano.

"Well, of all people to see," said Balin "there comes the one I thought was long gone! What made you come back tonight of all nights?"

The Duke at the piano smiled, and Bilbo was ever so glad to see his smile again. Balin's mask was the only that didn't cover its wearer's mouth; it depicted a white bird with bloodshot eyes and only the upper half of its beak. The mask's "wings" grew sideways from its head and just past the man's two ears.

"I've come here to talk to Thorin. I'd love to take the time to speak with everyone but I'm afraid I can't stay long, I'll have to leave when the morning comes."

"Ah, I see. I won't bother asking why you can't stay..." Balin laughed joylessly "You're looking for the King in hiding? Good luck with finding him! Don't let him know you're here before coming face to face with him, else he'll disappear for the night."

Bilbo remained silent as he considered whether or not to ask the Duke regarding his beloved song. On one hand, he very much wanted to know the root of Balin's obsession with it, and perhaps after all those years he'd softened his resolve on keeping it a secret and revealed it to Bilbo, but on the other, there was little time to waste talking with the orphanage's residents...But alas, understanding that once he left in the morning he'd never have a chance to inquire about it again, his curiosity won.

"Ori said you still play the Song of Healing every night, he seems to think you're getting pretty tired of it though," said Bilbo, controlling himself not to ask a more direct question as to not make the conversation awkward if the Duke didn't wish to explain himself.

Balin remained silent for many moments as his eyes observed the piano keys. He then set down the candle on a nearby small, round table, and played the first note of the song again. "Yes, I am quite tired of it. But even if I did tell you why I still play it you'd think I lie, as everyone else I have told has."

"Well, try me."

The Duke stared at his friend for many seconds as he considered the situation. Believing that Bilbo already thought him mad, he came to the conclusion that telling the truth to his old friend couldn't possibly make him seen anymore ridiculous. After so long, he lost the resolve to keep his reasons a secret. What does it matter if others thought him mad? Being thought of as sane wouldn't give him freedom from his song.

"I am cursed. Every night I play this song even if my mind has no intention of doing so. Every night I feel as if my body is no longer my own...it moves independently of my thoughts and I cannot stop it."

Bilbo's first thought upon hearing those words was that Thorin wasn't the only one gone mad, but he kept himself from making any snide comments. It had never been in Balin's character to lie by telling fantastic stories in the place of the truth, and the Duke's eyes showed only honesty. If nothing else, Bilbo considered the possibility that his friend did believe himself to be the victim of some fairy tale curse, and that his belief triggered some form of Placebo Effect. "Would you tell me how you were cursed, then?"

"It happened when that man came here, that damned Gandalf! He came looking for the mask that you stole, but after he didn't get it back he came to talk to me when I was practicing the piano."

_I met and spoke with him briefly in the main hall before going to practice. He gave me the impression of being a gentle man, though something clearly had him alarmed that day. I was very much surprised when he came into this room after one hour or so, clearly in a panic. He didn't speak with me at first, instead he opened his bag and frantically searched for something. I asked him if something was the matter and he stuttered his words._

_"I-I'm looking for something! Wait there!"_

_Eventually he found a small box inside his bag, opened it, removed and unfolded a piece of paper within. He handed it to me with his shaking hands -- they were filthy, as if he had been digging through the ground with them -- and I picked it up without a second thought. It was sheet music with the title "Song of Healing."_

_"Play it!" Gandalf ordered._

_I was young and easily intimidated and, feeling a threat beneath his words, complied nervously. My nerves and my lack of familiarity with the material made me commit several mistakes whilst trying to play the song, and for each mistake I made I looked at him, hoping he'd let me go. I could see his filthy hands gripping his white shirt tightly and I wondered if he'd do something to me if I didn't play the song properly. It was a very short song however, and, at last, I succeeded. When I did Gandalf visibly relaxed and let go of a breath I didn't realize he was holding._

_"Well done, child. You are a very capable pianist."_

_I didn't know why he complimented me after it took me so long to play what was a very simple song, but perhaps it was simply his way to make amends for being forceful. Either way, he still had more to tell._

_"You see, one of your friends has something that is very precious to me, but I don't believe I will be getting it back. And I won't be able to stay here to ensure he won't misuse it either..." Gandalf sat on the couch and wiped his hands on his pants. Though more calm he was still very pale and I wondered about his health, knowing very well what nerves could do to elderly men. "But someone must. Play the Song of Healing every night and all should be safe."_

_I don't know how he did it, but it must've been that the moment when he cursed me. I felt a sharp and sudden pain in my head, my vision became blurry and my arms became numb. I wanted to scream but could not. All I could do was watch Gandalf in terror and see the pity and regret in his eyes as he spoke once more. "There is no guarantee this will work, but following where the blind man leads is better than not moving at all." He left the room in a hurry afterwards, and I did not see him again._

_Eventually the pain in my head subdued and my body went back to its normal state, my heartbeat slowed down but I didn't quite regain my calm. For the rest of the day I considered telling someone what transpired between me and Gandalf, but I knew no one would believe me. You don't believe me either, do you, Bilbo?_

The bizarre story stunned Bilbo into silence as he wondered how to express his disbelief, but alas, he didn't need to; Balin's joyless laugh echoed through the room and both of them knew further discussion over the "curse" was pointless, Bilbo's skepticism for the supernatural wouldn't be easily swayed.

"I'm sorry Bilbo, but could you leave me be? I've much to think about."

Bilbo left the room afterwards, but he still thought about Balin's story and his conversation with Ori earlier came to mind. If Balin truly was cursed, then how come he was able to play less and less of the song as time went on? _Maybe because he's not cursed, just delusional,_ thought Bilbo, suddendly feeling a sting of pity for his friend. Balin had always been the most rational of them all and seeing that he's lost that was nothing sort of shameful.

Truth or not, he couldn't stand there all night fretting over Balin's stories.

There was no way to know where Thorin hid himself, Bilbo's best bet was to search the orphanage and be lucky enough to find someone who had seen the King. He quickly gave a look to all the smaller rooms connected to the main hall before reaching the library and deciding to search there more thoroughly. Actually, no, that wasn't really the reason. The place just made him feel nostalgic, and there was nothing wrong with a few minutes of indulgence, was there?


End file.
